This time, for realz

Looking at this story in the New York Times this morning I had to check the date to make sure I hadn't fallen into a wormhole or accidentaly traveled around the sun, a la Star Trek 4: The Journey Home.

White House Debate Rises on Iraq Pullback

White House officials fear that the last pillars of political support among Senate Republicans for President Bush’s Iraq strategy are collapsing around them, according to several administration officials and outsiders they are consulting. They say that inside the administration, debate is intensifying over whether Mr. Bush should try to prevent more defections by announcing his intention to begin a gradual withdrawal of American troops from the high-casualty neighborhoods of Baghdad and other cities.

This story reminded me of something....oh yeah, the same garbage they have been "said" to be debating for months now. This is so well trodden ground that even this crappy blog wrote about a similar story in the Times in May! Even though it is to another post on this blog, please check out the link and be freaked out about how little has changed these last few months despite all the rhetoric that things have/must change.
This is the best part of the article:

Officials describe the meetings as more of a running discussion than an argument. They say that no one is clinging to a stay-the-course position but that instead aides are trying to game out what might happen if the president becomes more specific about the start and the shape of what the White House is calling a “post-surge redeployment.”

Forget the (mom and dad aren't fighting, we're having a) running argument part for a second. What you have to do is run and mark you calendars with the first reference to a meaningless phrase that will come to dominate our political discourse for months to come: "post-surge redeployment". Welcome militaristic euphamisms! Take your rightful place next to "stay the course", "cut and run", "fight them there so we don't fight them here", and, of course, "surge".

Considering this story and the fact nearly 150 people died this weekend in one truck bombing in Iraq, I was pretty feeling pretty hopeless of anything positive being done in the near future. But then I read that Colin Powell tried to talk Bush out of the war for 2 1/2 hours!!! Wow, who says there aren't heroes anymore?